


Celebrity Gossip

by JustJReally



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV Outsider, Secret Relationship, Singer Jaskier | Dandelion, The outsider is an OC, background yenn/triss but not enough to clog the tag, otherwise this is very tame, rated T for swearing and one (1) mention of sex, screw cringe culture we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28843194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJReally/pseuds/JustJReally
Summary: Geralt is a park ranger with a murderous resting face and an inexplicable hatred of world-famous popstar Jaskier.OR5k of absolutely-clueless-outsider POV, now with bonus features!
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 23
Kudos: 301





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Disneygirl97 for the beta!
> 
> Edit 1/19/21: Fixed the name problems, thanks to everyone who let me know!!!

Overall, Lidia’s new job at Temeria Park is spectacular. The pay’s better than her old job, the hours are good, and she feels like she’s doing some good in the world (or the park is, at least, she mostly files papers).

There’s just one problem. That being, she’s absolutely positive the park ranger is going to murder her and leave her body out for the wolves. The man’s six foot something, he’s made of muscle and scar tissue, and he never speaks. His hair’s snow-white even though she’d bet he’s only in his thirties, which somehow adds to the intimidation factor. Unless he’s in uniform, his wardrobe consists solely of shades of black and very dark grey. His default expression is “murderous glare.” Not that Lidia sees him much, honestly, he’s usually out in the park somewhere, but when she does run into him in the Visitor’s Center, he is either covered in suspicious patches of mud, like he was, in fact, hiding a body somewhere off a trail, or lurking in a dark corner and glaring.

And sure, no one else at the park seems to be scared of him, but still. She can only spend so much of her time being murderously glared at before she begins to think someone’s going to murder her, glaring-ly.

To be honest, she’s not entirely convinced that the park itself _isn’t_ a front for organized crime, or a murder-cult. The director, Triss Merigold, is friendly and warm but not to be trifled with, and her partner, Yennefer, who has some complicated job in politics but drops in to the park every few weeks, is… just as terrifying as the creepy park ranger, honestly. She’s less overtly terrifying, sure, but Lidia has no doubt that this woman could ruin her life if she so desired. Not to mention the fact that she’s seen Geralt leaving the park a few times with two men, both of whom are just as muscular as him and even more scarred, and-

They’re definitely involved in something illegal.

Lidia is definitely either going to be murdered, or possibly take the fall when it all falls apart.

And while the certainty that she’s started working for serial killers is unsettling, what’s worse is that she’s dead curious about what’s going _on_ with the creepy, murderous park ranger, and the most she’s heard him speak was two consecutive sentences about a trail that had washed out, so she can’t even satisfy her curiosity.

That changes when Jaskier, Lidia’s favorite singer, ever, and a man who could probably bring the dead back to life with the sheer beauty of his voice, releases a new song. That’s enough of a shock in and of itself- he’s on tour right now, and he’d just released a new album, so she absolutely was not mentally prepared to hear new Jaskier music. But to top it off the song is beautiful, a heartwrenching ode to a lost lover, full of such genuine longing it makes her heart ache.

So of course, she has no choice but to play the song, and then the rest of his newest album, at top volume, while sifting through papers at work. The park keeps most of its records in a grimy, terrifying basement, and she needs a little music to distract herself, so she’s not jumping at shadows the whole time.

She only realizes that the ‘distraction’ plan has worked all too well when someone clears their throat behind her, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. When she turns, the terrifying park ranger (Gerard? Greg? Geralt? Geralt.) is looming there. _Oh shit_ , Lidia thinks, _he’s_ actually _going to murder me_.

“Please,” he says, his voice enough of a growl that it does not sound like a request, “turn that down.”

For half a millisecond, the sound of Jaskier crooning something soft and sweet about his lover taking him apart in bed is the loudest thing in the known universe.

“Sorry!” Lidia throws herself at her phone in the desperate hope that if she turns the song off, right now, she won’t be murdered for her taste in musicians. She fumbles through unlocking the damn thing, nearly dropping it twice, and stabs at the screen; it takes five tries for her to get the song to stop playing. “So sorry, I didn’t realize anyone could hear-”

“Most of the building can,” Geralt says. She may be going crazy but he sounds- amused? She glances up from her phone. He nods at the ceiling. “Vents.”

Lidia’s not going to be murdered. She’s going to die of embarrassment. She’s been unknowingly serenading all of her co-workers for- what, an hour now? Which would be bad enough on its own, but no, she just _had_ to be listening to the album that’s 50% love songs so sweet they could physically cause tooth decay, unless listened to in moderation, and 50% convoluted metaphors that are probably about sex. “Sorry,” she mumbles again.

“Don’t apologize. Just- lower the volume? Or play something else, please.”

“Not a Jaskier fan, huh?” she asks.

The question visibly startles Geralt, which strikes her as odd considering the context, but there’s a tiny smile on his face as he says, “Something like that,” and turns to leave. She returns to sorting papers and, after a few minutes, turns her album back on, with the volume down.

The second time she hears Geralt speak more than three consecutive sentences, he’s verbally eviscerating the two fratboy-types who came into the visitor’s center and refused to leave her alone. She didn’t realize it was possible to humiliate someone that effectively while calmly talking about mountain lions. 

After that, and feeling a little guilty for dismissing Geralt as ‘murderous’, she starts making an effort to talk with him when she can. And… well…

He’s still intimidating. And he’s not exactly chatty. But when she does finally manage to coax a conversation out of him, it’s a short but passionate rant about how bad science surrounding wolf packs is accepted as fact.

And that speaks less of “serial killer” and more of “huge nerd.”

The second time she’s forced to question everything she knows about Geralt, it’s after Triss frantically waves her into her office while on the phone. With one hand over the receiver, she whispers, “There’s a packet on Geralt’s desk about funding for the-” she grimaces mid-sentence, and removes her hand to say “Oh no, of course, sir.” He tone is perfectly polite, the look she’s aiming at the wall less so. Lidia’s surprised whoever she’s talking to hasn’t withered and died on the spot from the sheer force of that glare, the scant protection of phone lines be damned. “I completely understand, this must be very difficult for you.” She’s writing something on a sticky note as she speaks, and she passes it over to Lidia. _Grant funding packet_ , it reads. _Blue cover_.

Lidia nods, once, and practically runs down the hall to Geralt’s office. Or, to the closet that became Geralt’s office when the ceiling in his actual office developed a worrying mold problem. She knocks once before opening the door, and- Geralt’s not there.

 _Shit,_ Lidia thinks, hovering awkwardly in the door for a moment. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t want to go pawing through Geralt’s desk. She does not want to go pawing through Geralt’s desk _now_. But she doesn’t want to leave Triss to deal with- whoever that was- unarmed, so Lidia steels herself and crosses the room.

The space is tidy, probably because it’s the size of a postage stamp, and utilitarian- the desk is crammed into the far back corner, and there’s a stack of cardboard boxes by the door. The only evidence that this room is used for more than storage is the fact that the computer on the desk is plugged in, and there’s a calendar of horse photos tacked to a wall.

Lidia’s eye catches on a framed photo at the top of one of the boxes- _is that Geralt in a suit?-_ and it takes everything she has to wrench herself away from an answer to her burning questions about the (still maybe a serial killer? But like a nice one) park ranger, and start sorting around on the desk for a packet.

Unfortunately, the desk is buried in an absurd amount of paper, as though Geralt had printed out every email he’d ever been sent and stacked them on his desk for posterity. As Lidia’s reaching around the computer for a likely-looking pile, she accidentally bumps the mouse.

Geralt’s desktop photo is also of a horse. Lidia doesn’t take a close look at it, focusing instead on skimming through the pile for something- anything- about funding, but it’s all page-long letters about corrections to the last page-long letter about new safety restrictions for- something. As Lidia sets down that pile and goes for another one, the image on the desktop shifts, to another photo of the same horse. Or possibly a different horse that is also brown, she can’t tell. The image flips three more times, all horse photos, while she keeps shuffling through papers, increasingly frantic. Triss said it was on Geralt’s desk, and it’s not, and it would be absolutely wonderful if Geralt wasn’t somewhere in the middle of the woods right now-

The image flips again, the movement catching Lidia’s attention, and her thought process stutters to a halt as she glances at it. It’s not a horse photo. It’s a photo of Geralt at a museum of some sort; there’s a dinosaur skeleton behind him, although it’s not entirely in frame. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Now that she’s heard Geralt talk at length about threats to local insect populations, Lidia would absolutely believe that he spends his spare time at museums.

What’s bizarre about the photo is that Geralt’s holding a kid. She can’t tell much about the kid because the photo caught them in motion, attempting to climb over Geralt’s shoulder to get a closer look at the dinosaur. He’s bent over, trying not to let them fall, but he’s laughing. The expression completely transforms his face. Lidia doesn’t know if she’d recognize the man in the photo as her coworker under any other circumstances- he looks like years’ worth of stress and unhappiness have been lifted from him. 

While Lidia’s staring, thinking _Wait he has a kid?_ the image changes again, to a photo of Geralt and the same kid setting up a tent in the middle of the woods. And- that has to be Geralt’s kid. She looks about nine or ten, and her hair’s blonde rather than white and her eyes look more green than hazel, but- that’s his kid. Geralt’s pointing to something at the base of the tent, and she’s watching him with an adorably studious expression. _He has a kid. How have I known him for three months and not learned that he has a kid._

The image shifts again, and Lidia braces herself for further mind-boggling revelations.

What she gets instead is an extremely grainy photo of four people in thick coats and hats, sitting by a campfire. She’s pretty sure the two closest to the camera are Triss and Yennefer, and she’d guess that one of the two in the background is Geralt, with his arm around the shoulders of a dark-haired man. Truly, the photo looks like it was taken mid-motion with a broken camera; she doesn’t have the faintest clue who that fourth person is, and she’s basically identifying Geralt by his hair. The context of the photo is equally opaque- Triss is laughing at something, leaning into Yennefer’s shoulder, Yennefer is gesturing widely with the opposite hand, Geralt and the man are either mid-conversation or about to start shoving each other, and everything not directly next to the fire is so pitch-black there could be five other people in the photo and Lidia would not be able to tell.

She’s trying to get a better look when the image shifts to another horse photo, and she feels suddenly guilty for snooping. And for-

 _Shit, packet. Right._ Lidia scans back over the desk, half-ready to run off into the woods and get Geralt to deal with this, when she notices something blue at the very bottom of one of the stacks. She grabs it, checks to make sure it says something about grant funding, and leaves the office, thanking every single deity she can think of individually.

Once she’s delivered the packet, she realizes she may have been overreacting a little. It might not even be Geralt’s kid in the photos. Maybe he has a niece. And if he does have a kid, that’s not the world’s biggest deal. Weird that he’s literally never mentioned having a family up until this point, but he’s nothing if not taciturn, so it makes a certain amount of sense.

That doesn’t stop her from being wildly curious, but even though she redoubles her efforts to draw Geralt into any sort of small talk, she does not succeed. She does overhear him telling Triss a story about his brothers (or possibly cousins?) that begins with the sentence, “No, _Julian_ was the one who set the curtains on fire. Lambert set the _couch_ on fire.” The story is informative, but only in the sense that she now knows that: Geralt has brothers (or maybe cousins), there are somewhere between two and four of them, and they have a family tradition of vacationing in the mountains. She also learns that Triss and Yennefer have been part of this family-mountain-vacation tradition recently, which if she’d learned it three months ago, would only have solidified her belief that she’s accidentally working for a cult.

Now she’s just convinced she works with a bunch of crazy people who enjoy being trapped in small cabins by walls of snow for some reason.

The one thing she does learn in her ~~snooping~~ ~~eavesdropping~~ _attempting to be a friendly co-worker_ is that Geralt just- really, deeply hates Jaskier.

Well, she more or less would have assumed that based on their first real interaction, but she has her assumption confirmed one afternoon. She’s in the closet-sized staff room, eating lunch and watching a Jaskier interview on a late-night talk show she never would have watched otherwise. It’s absolutely worth it for the way Jaskier’s eyes light up when the interviewer asks, “Any special women in your life?”

“There is one,” he says, with an adorable smile, “I could never do all this without her. She’s with me for every performance-” Next to him, his bandmate Renfri is biting her lip, with a glint in her eye that makes Lidia wonder if there is some truth to the rumor that the two of them are an item.

The door to the staffroom opens just as Jaskier’s saying, “-and she is _incredibly_ sexy. I mean she has a lovely- uh- neck.” Lidia’s never seen a man look more thoroughly exasperated than Geralt does in that moment, which is deeply unfair. It’s her break, she can listen to dumb celebrity gossip if she wants. He nods at her and snakes around the table to the fridge; she turns her attention back to the interview.

“You know, on the subject of your love life,” the interviewer says, “You haven’t played ‘Garroter’ in a while. Is this mystery woman why?”

It’s painfully obvious how quickly Jaskier’s expression shuts down, even on a tiny phone screen. “No,” says, his tone suddenly stilted, “That’s not it, exactly. It’s probably obvious that I wasn’t exactly, uh- happy. When I wrote that song. But since then I’ve-”

Geralt sighs loudly. Lidia glances up to find him scowling at the wall, and then pointedly returns her attention to her phone. If he’s this personally offended by celebrity interviews, he can leave.

Which he does, pulling his lunch from the fridge and fleeing the room almost before Jaskier’s finished speaking. Lidia would be tempted to go back and watch the bit she missed, but the end of his answer, “I don’t want to keep dredging up those old hurts each time I perform. Especially not when I’m happy now,” seems to cover it, and she doesn’t fancy looking at that shuttered expression on his face for any longer than she has to. 

Before the interviewer can ask something else, Renfri jumps in. How she makes “We’ve been sticking more to songs from the new album recently,” sound like a threat, Lidia will never know, but she wants lessons.

She gets part of an answer to the ‘Geralt’s family’ question, and a full answer to the ‘why does Geralt hate Jaskier’ question a month later, while she’s flipping through tabloids in the grocery store line.

“DAD,” a voice shouts, and then a small blonde girl ducks under her arm to pull one of the teen magazines from the shelf- specifically, the one advertising ‘Full page Jaskier poster inside!’ in a garish red font across the top. Lidia looks up as the girl returns to her father, who’s standing in the next line over, and does a double take.

That’s Geralt.

It probably shouldn’t be that much of a shock; the girl, who is now bouncing up and down and saying, “Dad! Dad, we need to get this!” is clearly the same girl from the photos. At the same time, it would be strange enough to see Geralt, who she mostly sees in the woods or just having been in the woods, in the middle of a supermarket.

It is doubly strange to see Geralt with an entire kid, triply strange to watch him nodding along seriously to the speech she’s making, with lawyerlike poise, about why it’s so important that they get this particular poster.

The thing that’s truly breaking Lidia’s brain is the fact that Geralt’s wearing color.

His sweater’s a deep shade of navy blue, which wouldn’t be that startling. It should, by all accounts, be a logical color for Geralt “dresses like a bruise” Rivia to wear. But there’s something sparkly threaded into the fabric, and it glitters in a way that stands out against the sticky supermarket lighting. It’s also a just a hair too small, which Lidia would put down to a deliberate choice were it not for the fact that it’s _Geralt_. Not to mention that it’s short in the sleeves in a way that doesn’t look like a fashion choice.

“Please? If we get this magazine, I won’t even ask you to buy me a tour shirt next week,” the girl begs.

“Ciri, you know Dad’s going to give you as many tour shirts as you want,” Geralt replies, clearly holding back a smile. It’s deeply strange to hear him talk about himself in the third person. “And we can get a better poster-”

“But this is _different_ ,” the girl- Ciri, apparently- insists. “It’s in a _magazine_. When my hockey team got in the news we kept _that_.”

Geralt looks around, as though he might find a response to that argument on the two-for-one chips shelf. His eyes pass over Lidia, and he does a double take, followed by a remarkable impression of a deer in headlights.

“Nice to see you!” Lidia says, a bit too loudly, trying to telegraph _hey, sorry for staring, it’s just weird to see you with a kid._

“You too,” Geralt grunts. His daughter stops talking immediately, hiding the magazine behind her back. _Aw_ , Lidia thinks, _she’s shy like her dad._

It’s a strange thought, but now that she’s articulated the words, ‘he’s shy’ sound like a more obvious explanation for Geralt’s everything than ‘he’s a serial killer.’ As if to confirm her conclusion, Geralt says, “We should get going. Parent-teacher- thing.” He points at the cart, which is full of kiddie-sized snacks, as his line begins to move again.

The cart, Lidia notes, also contains one magazine.

And rightfully, that should be it. Mystery solved, Creepy Serial Killer Park Ranger is apparently a shy single dad with a resting murderface. Who knew.

And that _would’ve_ been it, had she not managed to forget her phone at work, and wind up back in the Visitor’s Center, after hours, hating every aspect of her life. She’s not sure if the quiet sound of voices floating down the hall from the back offices makes her feel better or worse. On the one hand, at least she’s not alone in the building, which is, as far as she can tell, supremely haunted. On the other, the fact that someone else is still here is somehow making her more annoyed that _she’s_ here too.

She storms down the hall, not really paying attention to the voices, which turn out to be coming from Geralt’s office. She cannot imagine why he’s still in the building this late, unless they’re having a repeat of the time a woman called to complain about a horrifying rabid wolf wandering the trails. The wolf in question had turned out to be a muddy golden retriever, but the two-ish hours before they’d figured that out had been a small nightmare, and the twenty-four hours following the discovery only slightly less so, as the woman had kept insisting the park was infested with rabid wolves.

 _It probably_ is _another Wolf Incident_ , Lidia thinks; whoever Geralt’s talking to hasn’t paused for breath in the entire time she’s been in earshot. He only gets a (singular) word in edgewise as she’s opening her office door. The word in question is “Buttercup,” which makes Lidia think whoever’s on the line is the same man who’d wanted them to weed the entire park.

The phone isn’t on her desk, and she spends the next few minutes tearing her office apart, half-listening to the conversation in the other room (it’s about the timing of- something, but she cannot figure out what from what she can half-hear of Geralt’s end of the conversation.) When search proves fruitless, she storms out of her office and down to the basement. The phone is, of course, perched on a filing cabinet in the far corner of the basement, on two percent battery.

Swearing under her breath, Lidia marches back up the stairs and shoves open the basement door, only to be met with the faint sound of music.

Were it not for the fact that Geralt is probably still in the building, she would be calling an exorcist. As it is, she stands stock still in the doorway for a moment, chills running down her spine.

 _Hang on a second,_ she thinks, _that song sounds familiar._ She takes a few steps closer to Geralt’s door, and yes, he is listening to some bizarre acoustic cover of “Silver and Steel.” It is a surprisingly good cover, but what’s more surprising is the fact that “Silver and Steel” is a Jaskier song. That Geralt is apparently listening to. Of his own volition, unless whoever was on the phone is now forcing him to listen to music.

The last few notes of “Silver and Steel” transition, without pause, into the first few notes of “Corner Table,” which is… even more odd. “Corner Table” is one of Jaskier’s older songs, and it’s not on any of his albums. You’d have to be a die-hard Jaskier fan, or one who’s been following him since the beginning, to even recognize it as his. Lidia is the former, which really begs the question of which one Geralt is.

And she really should be going, it’s going to be past seven by the time she gets home, but this is a really good cover and there’s something very transcendental about sitting in an almost-abandoned building with that song filtering through the walls.

She leans back against the wall to listen, a little more heavily than she’d meant to. The music continues, but a few moments later, Geralt’s door opens. He steps halfway out into the hall, notices Lidia, and gives her a blank look.

“Forgot my phone,” she says, holding it up. She’s not sure if she needs to explain ‘and then I heard your music and it was pretty so I stopped to listen,’ and instead she raises her eyebrow and asks, “Not a Jaskier fan, huh?”

She’s not expecting him to look utterly terrified for a moment, and then say, “You can’t tell _anyone_ ,” his tone more of a growl than anything else. Lidia takes an involuntary half-step back. Geralt immediately backs off, scrubbing a hand over his face exhaustedly. “It’s not a secret, exactly,” he says, “Everyone here knows. It’s just that, with Ciri-”

His face is still deadly serious, and Lidia has to bite down on her lip, hard, to keep from laughing. It’s probably a little rude, but the fact that the man is so terrified of people learning that he likes his preteen daughter’s favorite band is…

It’s pretty freaking hilarious, even if it does make her want to print some resources about toxic masculinity and leave them on his desk. “It’s alright,” she says, cutting him off, “My lips are sealed.”

“They are?” he sounds doubtful, and he’s still visibly nervous, which is made all the more worrying by the fact that this is the most emotion she’s seen from him, ever. She’d been looking for skeletons in his closet, sure, but if he’s got a history that justifies him being this scared about a coworker knowing he likes a vaguely girly band- That is not the sort of skeleton she’d wanted to find.

“They are,” she assures him, feeling slightly more charitable. “I promise, I won’t mention a word of this conversation once I leave the building. What would even be the point?”

At that Geralt looks mildly reassured. “Thank you,” he says, “I know it’s-”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Lidia says, mildly exasperated. The thrill of the song has worn off, and now she very much wants to finish this conversation and go home. “I’m heading out, enjoy your weekend.” Geralt remains awkwardly half-in the doorway as she turns to leave. Wanting to fill the awkward silence, Lidia adds, “He’s a really great singer.”

Geralt’s response to that is, “Thanks?” which is completely bizarre, but Lidia’s grown to expect that from him.

A little over six months after she’d started working at Temeria, Lidia is at the front desk when a man wanders into the lobby to with a befuddled look on his face. He’s got a guitar case swung over one shoulder and a suitcase in the other hand, and he’s wearing a worn black hoodie with pants that seem designed to make up for the lack of color in the hoodie. While he’s not the weirdest thing Lidia’s seen in the lobby, he does look extremely lost, an impression that’s only strengthened when he sets his suitcase down in the dead center of the room and looks around like he’s never been in a building before.

“Can I help you with anything?” Lidia asks, turning on her best Customer Service Smile.

The man turns to her, grinning sheepishly. “I’m looking for Geralt, did his office move?” he asks, but she don’t register it at all because-

She knows that face.

It’s a face she’s seen on magazine covers and in music videos and, more recently, from the nosebleeds of a concert venue, a face she never, ever expected to see in person-

Because that’s Jaskier. Noted owner of basically all the Grammys _Jaskier_ is standing in the Temeria Park Visitor’s Center.

She let out a little scream. She doesn’t mean to, but in her defense she’s startled, and then in some vain attempt to make up for the screaming she starts babbling, “I’m sorry I am so sorry you must get that all the time I’m not a crazed fan I promise I mean I am a fan of your music, obviously, and I’m not helping my case I really am sorry is there anything I can-”

At this point she runs out of breath and realizes that Jaskier (Jaskier, she is still standing three feet away from _Jaskier_ ) has been babbling at her just as frantically. Whatever he’d been saying, it ends with, “and really, I thought Geralt had at least mentioned me- are you alright?”

“Can I have your autograph?” she croaks, because her brain-to-mouth filter has apparently decided she deserves to dig this grave deeper.

“Um, sure?” Jaskier replies, “But I really do need to-”

He’s interrupted by Geralt stalking into the room like an incarnate god of murder. Lidia jumps a little, and she’s got used to Geralt murderously stalking around the building at this point. When he notices the celebrity in the center of the room, Geralt freezes in place like he’s been struck.

The smile that spreads across Jaskier’s face is- well, it’s breathtaking, soft and sweet and happy, genuine in a way his on-camera smiles aren’t. “Surprise,” he says softly. He spreads his arms a little, like he’s about to take a bow.

Geralt keeps staring. Lidia’s honestly not sure if he’s breathed at all during this exchange. And then whatever spell had been cast over the room breaks. Geralt takes a step forward, a look on his face that can only be described as “intense,” Jaskier very quickly sets his guitar case down, and Lidia briefly wonders if she’s about to watch Geralt get in a fistfight with her favorite singer.

Instead, Jaskier throws himself into Geralt’s arms. Geralt catches him, picking him up and swinging him around. They’re both laughing, and when they finish the spin Geralt repositions his arms so that he’s comfortably holding Jaskier up, and Jaskier locks his legs around Geralt’s waist, and- oh.

They’re kissing.

Her coworker is kissing the current #1 of billboard’s top 100.

Geralt- her _coworker_ who she’s known for the _past six months_ and who only ever talks about _horses_ and _endangered species_ \- is kissing a man who has three quarters of an EGOT, who has definitely willed an entire genre of music into existence with sheer talent, who dated a _Countess_ two years ago- like. Like this is normal. Like this is a thing that happens.

She thinks if she keeps telling herself that she might believe that it is indeed happening, and she’s not just having a fever dream.

It takes a few more seconds for her to realize that, assuming this is, indeed, happening, she should probably stop staring.

Before she can figure out how to extricate herself from this situation- she’d have to brush past them to get to the door- they break the kiss, but otherwise stay firmly wrapped around each other. If anything, they might hold each other even closer.

“What are you doing here?” Geralt asks, his voice suspiciously watery.

“Surprising you,” Jaskier says, “Surprise.” Lidia can only see a sliver of Geralt’s face over Jaskier’s shoulder, and it’s the tenderness in his eyes more than anything else that makes her feel like she’s intruded on something that should be private.

She takes slow step backwards, with the vague plan of “wriggle through the little gap between the desk and the wall and hang out outside for a bit.” Unfortunately, she walks directly into the desk chair with an unfairly loud crash. She turns to shove the chair aside with the vague hope that will stop it from making noise, and when she looks up again, Geralt’s set Jaskier down. He still has his arm looped around Jaskier’s waist, and Jaskier’s leaning into his side in a way that speaks of years of using the other man as a human headrest.

For what feels like an eternity but is probably just a few seconds, the three of them stare uncomfortably at each other. Geralt breaks the silence with, “Lidia, this is my husband, Julian.”

At the word _husband_ , Lidia’s brain short-circuits even further. She’s dimly aware of Jaskier rolling his eyes with a teasing “Ugh, don’t call me that. I always think you’ve married someone else,” but mostly she’s trying to get a grip on the several dozen questions that the word raises.

Jaskier turns to her, leaning over the desk to offer a hand. “ _Jaskier_ Rivia. Lovely to meet you.”

“Guh,” she says, but she manages to shake his hand like a normal person. Casting about for a singular thing she can add to this conversation, she throws out, “How long have you two been together?” realizing too late that it probably sounds like she’s digging for gossip.

“It’ll be thirteen years in August,” Jaskier says, with the sort of sappy look she’d expect from someone who’s been married for over a decade.

At the same time, Geralt says, “Four years,” with equal confidence.

And really, at this point she’d be convinced that Geralt is just playing some sort of extremely high effort prank on her, were it not for the fact that she has no idea what he could possibly gain from that. Not to mention the fact that Geralt and Jaskier appear to be having a conversation entirely in eyerolls and offended noises. Then Geralt says “More like six.”

While Jaskier says “Ok, fine, three.”

And Lidia decides she has no hope of figuring this one out. Especially since- well, there’s not a single version of those dates that doesn’t conflict wildly with Jaskier’s public relationships. Which reminds her of the question she probably should have asked. “Should I-” she begins. There’s an almost audible rip as Geralt and Jaskier tear their eyes away from each other. “Should I keep this quiet?” The temperature in the room drops ten degrees, and both men rapidly shift in demeanor, Geralt looking worried and Jaskier quietly furious, and she quickly adds, “I won’t take it to social media! Obviously! I mean, not ‘obviously I wouldn’t do that’, even though I wouldn’t, but ‘obviously this isn’t something I should share.’ I just meant- does anyone else around here know?”

Now they both just look confused. “Everyone does,” Geralt says, after a second. “Like I told you.” The fact that Geralt has told her literally anything about his personal life is news to Lidia, but luckily he decides to contextualize. “After you overheard us on the phone last month.”

“Oh,” Lidia says, just to say something, thinking back to what Geralt could possibly have told her-

 _You can’t tell_ anyone _._

“Oh!” she says again, “Shit! You did tell me!”

“Yes,” Geralt says, “I did.”

“I thought you were just embarrassed I’d caught you listening to a Jaskier song. I thought you hated him,” Lidia says, the pieces coming together as she speaks, “But you were… on the phone… with him.” She looks over at Jaskier. Jaskier waves. “Ohgodyouwereonthephonewithhim. I was. Right there. Listening. God.”

“Yes,” Geralt says slowly. “That’s why I asked you not to tell anyone. Like I said, it’s not exactly a secret, but we’re trying to spare Ciri the spotlight for as long as possible.”

“Oh,” Lidia says quietly, “ _That’s_ what you were talking about.”

“You know, Geralt,” Jaskier says, into the ensuing silence, “I’m beginning to think you didn’t explain this as well as you’d told me you did.”

“He sure didn’t,” Lidia mutters. Jaskier laughs, which briefly stops Lidia’s heart.

The conversation dies again.

“Well,” Jaskier says after a moment, entirely too loudly. “We went straight from the last venue to the airport and I’m pretty sure I haven’t slept since Wednesday.” He turns to Geralt. “Are you good to leave, or should I-”

“I’ll get my keys,” Geralt says.

“I’ll get my stuff.” They part with a quick peck on the lips, Geralt heading for the back offices so quickly one might assume something was chasing him, Jaskier picking up his bags and heading for the front doors. “Let me know about that autograph,” he calls over his shoulder, and the doors swing shut behind him. Less than a minute later, Geralt follows him, leaving Lidia to wonder if he bent the laws of physics to get to his office and back that quickly.

Which is good. It gives her a chance to process. This.

Unfortunately, no amount of processing time could have prepared her for once-performed-for-literal-royalty Jaskier, _that_ Jaskier, dropping Geralt off at work the next week. He’s wearing the same grubby hoodie, he’s far too chipper for 8:30 am, and he looks unaccountably comfortable behind the wheel of Geralt’s ancient monster of a car.

Geralt’s humming “Toss a Coin” as he walks into the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It's Geralt's hoodie)
> 
> I have at least another 5k of backstory for this just sitting in my brain, so sequel sometime, maybe? 
> 
> Read chapter 2 if you want brief explanations for the major misunderstandings. If you'd rather come up with your own explanations you are incredibly valid, have a lovely day!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

The alternate perspective to the events of this fic:

1\. If Geralt has to listen to this near-stranger singing along to a song that’s very much about him having sex with his husband for another second, he’s going to lose his last marble.

2\. When asked if there’s a special woman in his life, Jaskier is, in fact, talking about his lute. She’s very special to him, after all.

2.5. There’s a long-standing rumor that Jaskier and Renfri are dating, mostly on the grounds of “they’re a Woman and a Man and they seem to like each other.” At this point they just don’t bother to correct anyone, which has the added benefit of 1. Obscuring the fact that Jaskier’s been married to a man for three years and 2. Giving Renfri a bit of a smokescreen for her own love life, so she can avoid (some) obnoxious questions.

3\. Jaskier’s absolutely uncensored answer to “Why don’t you play that song anymore?” would be, “Look, when I wrote it I was extremely (and justifiably) angry with a good friend, but we made up years ago. So I probably would’ve stopped playing it anyway, I didn’t want to be dredging up that fight every single time I performed, but then we started dating. And- y’know, yelling about the worst fight you and your partner ever had to thousands of people every week is not a healthy foundation for a relationship. So I definitely wanted to retire it. And _then_ we got married, and we have a daughter. So you know. Overall. No longer playing the ‘I loathe the man I am now married to’ song seemed like the best option.”

4\. Geralt is assuming Lidia heard/understood more of the conversation than she did. The conversation is mostly “Ok your tour ends on [date], so I’ll pick you up from the airport on [date]- wait no, that last concert’s going to end late so you’ll have to stay another night- and then there’s the time change-” but it’s peppered with terms of endearment and the goodbyes were very sappy.

5\. It’s not a cover, it’s Jaskier playing- they’re doing the ol’ “We’re going to have skype on and just each do our own thing so we can kind of be in the same room together.”

6\. 91% of the time, Geralt does call Jaskier, “Jaskier.” He just finds it awkward to introduce his own husband by his stage name, even if that stage name is also his nickname.

7\. Jaskier and Geralt have only been together for thirteen years if you count from the day they met. Six is when they started dating, four is when Geralt proposed, three is when they got married.

A Guide to all the mentioned Jaskier songs, in case you want a vibe:

Titleless song1- “I’ve been away from you for half a year now because I’m on tour and I miss you like a lost limb”: the song

Titleless song2- if “Streetlights” by Ludo were about the sort of sex Hozier’s talking about in “Dinner and Diatribes.” Not _horrendously_ explicit, but the sort of song that _feels_ horrendously explicit when a near-stranger is watching you frantically trying to get it to stop playing.

“Corner Table”- the three minute long musical rendition of “I love the way you just sit in the corner and brood.” It is objectively not good, but also it's the best thing you've ever heard. The sort of song that inspires the reaction, “This is not a good song, it is, at best, a singularly _odd_ song, and that’s why I will defend it to the death as a good song.”

“Silver and Steel”- if “Glitter and Gold” were slightly more folk-hero-esque, and probably had a lute in it somewhere.

Also in this universe, “Toss a Coin” is still “my best friend has a very hard job and you should be nicer to him: the song,” but when Jaskier wrote it, Geralt worked customer service at some big chain hardware store. Jaskier more or less just wrote it for Geralt, but it took off. 

A conversation that I couldn’t fit into this fic, but is canon in my heart:

Lidia: Is ‘Jaskier’ supposed to be on the list of people coming to the [miscellaneous staff bonding event]?

Triss: I think so, Geralt said he’ll be done touring by the end of the month.

Lidia: … so he’s coming to the [miscellaneous staff bonding event]?

Triss: Yeah. Spouses are invited.

Lidia: … that’s nice, but- Is he going to sing or something???

Triss: I mean, probably.


End file.
